Search This Blog

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Bezel Quilt

Hearing of Cathedral Windows quilts at the quilt show reminded me of some squares I made a long time ago that are kind of cheater-cathedral windows (although apparently this technique was developed when trying to find an easy way to make Orange Peel blocks). All the hard work (but really, these are super easy to make) was done; all I had to do was sew together the nine squares, quilt the piece, and bind it.

The technique comes from "Bezel Blocks" by Addy Harkavy and Sandie McCann, in the July/August 2004 issue of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. All you do is cut two squares, fold the top one in half diagonally, layer it on to the bottom, and gently fold back the center of hypotenuse of the top. That edge is on the bias, so it produces a gentle curve. Slip stitch the curve in place, and you are done!

The different designs in the sampler I made come from either varying the size of the top squares, playing around with the positions, or starting with pieced squares. The names of the blocks, from left to right, top to bottom: Cat Eye, four Split Bezels, Open Cat Eye, Center Diamond (four Eyebrow blocks), Porthole, Pinwheel (another placement variation of Eyebrow blocks), Double Cat Eye, Flying Geese (yet another variation of Eyebrow blocks), and Four-Patch Cat Eye.